“Dead Island” Success Results in Movie Adapation Lead by Lionsgate!

Earlier this year, the first trailer for Dead Island rocked the web with its reverse storytelling following the death of a young girl, backward in time, through a zombie attack and her parents’ attempt to save her life. The trailer was gut-wrenching, raw with emotion, and captured the eyes of millions (over 1 million in the first twenty-four hours alone) around the world. Many credit this trailer, as well as the ones that followed, with propelling this once-quiet zombie slasher to super-stardom amongst gamers.

Dead Island hit stores earlier this month and enjoyed success with consumers (over 2 million copies sold), which seems to have sparked a bidding war amongst Hollywood studios eager to get their hands on adaptation rights. Lionsgate recently announced their acquisition of film rights, which they hope to expand to a potential franchise, and had the following to say:

This is exactly the type of property we’re looking to adapt at Lionsgate: it’s sophisticated, edgy, and a true elevation of a genre that we know and love. It also has built in brand recognition around the world, and franchise potential.

Jason Brown and Missy Papageorge are on board as executive producers, while Sarah Perlman, Stefan Sonnenfeld, and Daniel Brown will produce. No release date has been made available, which isn’t too surprising considering the movie is still in pre-production. We’ll keep you updated! In the mean time, check out the trailer which sparked the Dead Island revolution.

About Author

Mike Macauley is the founder and editor in chief of Lytherus.com. He also founded and runs Shurtugal.com, the official Inheritance Cycle community, and published his book, The Inheritance Almanac, in 2011. Mike can be found on Twitter at @mikemacauley.